Williams, Barker, Highfield, plus other players removed from protocol

Zed Williams (Photo: JTobiasPhoto/Panther City)

Over the last few days, the National Lacrosse League has confirmed via their official transaction page that a handful of players have been moved off of the league’s COVID-19 protocol list.

Those players include: Owen Barker (Vancouver Warriors), Nate Faccin (Colorado Mammoth), Cory Highfield (Rochester Knighthawks), Noah Lebar (Colorado Mammoth), Carter McKenzie (Calgary Roughnecks) and Zed Williams (Colorado Mammoth).

Complete list of NLL players in COVID protocol.

While many of the players released over the last two days were recent additions to the NLL’s protocol list, Highfield had been sitting in protocol since December 11th. He was the league’s second player placed in protocol, a day after Jeff Teat became the NLL’s first. Both Highfield and Teat missed two games due to their status. It’s anticipated that Teat will be playing this weekend. Highfield’s Knighthawks don’t play again until January 21st.

Barker, who was placed in protocol prior to the Warriors’ Friday night home date against the Mammoth, was joined by teammates Keegan Bal and Justin Salt. Vancouver General Manager, Dan Richardson, told The Province another six Warriors have had COVID recently but were cleared medically in time to play in that game. It’s believed many teams around the league have experienced the same over the holiday break and postponed Week 5 action.

As of today, there have been no Week 7 games postponed and no players placed in protocol.

The Halifax Thunderbirds, however, confirmed that, “Due to the extension of current restrictions in Nova Scotia, our January 22 home game vs Buffalo has been postponed until further notice.” The team was previously forced to reschedule their January 8th home game against the New York Riptide to February 4th as a result of those same provincial restrictions. Halifax, who started their season on December 4th, has only played two games all year. The Thunderbirds travel to Hamilton this Saturday to play the Toronto Rock. Due to provincial restrictions in Ontario, the game will be played with no fans in attendance.

The league has the following five games scheduled for the upcoming weekend:

Friday January 14

Georgia Swarm at Buffalo Bandits (7:30pm ET)
San Diego Seals at Saskatchewan Rush (8:30pm ET)

Saturday January 15

Albany FireWolves at Philadelphia Wings (12:00pm ET)
Halifax Thunderbirds at Toronto Rock (7:00pm ET)
Panther City Lacrosse Club at New York Riptide (7:30pm ET)